


You Took Apart The Alphabet

by MercyBuckets



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hallucinations, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Self-Esteem Issues, Snark, Team as Family, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 22:11:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4322685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercyBuckets/pseuds/MercyBuckets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John knows that Dutch will come for him, he just has to hang in there until she does.</p><p>The idea wouldn't leave me alone and goodness knows we need more Killjoys' fics. This is unbetaed so please be nice. </p><p>The title comes from the Mountain Goats song "Snow Owl" (literally all of titles seem to come from Mountain Goats songs)</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Took Apart The Alphabet

**Author's Note:**

> and here where it all stops for good  
> where the cool waters run  
> thought i saw a mouse kicking in your beak  
> it was only a skeleton
> 
> \- Snow Owl, The Mountain Goats

 

"John Jaqobis, Level 3 RAC agent, not so high a mighty now are you?"

John blinks weakly. He can just barely make out the outline of the speaker through slitted eyes. It's a woman. As she comes closer, he can see her more clearly. She's tall with pretty blonde hair and rosy cheeks, at odds with the ugly snarl on her lips. He doesn't recognize her. 

"Tell me Killjoy, are you afraid to die?" she asks caressing his face. 

He tries not to shudder. He hurts so badly he can barely think. Luckily sarcasm comes easier than breathing. 

"I'm quaking in my boots, oh wait you took those," 

That earns him a fist to the face that leaves his ears ringing. His head lolls as he tries to get his feet under him. His toes brush the ground and he's able to relieve an ounce of the pressure that's set his shoulders screaming. 

The respite is short-lived. When the woman turns back he receives blow after blow to his exposed stomach. He still doesn't know why he's here. He doesn't even know where "here" is. 

"Whaz-a-matter," he slurs. "Can't take me when I'm sober?"

She runs a perfectly manicured nail down his throbbing chest, prodding painful bruises with a smile.

"I'm beginning to think that your partner doesn't care for you as much as I believed," she says. 

Dutch, the woman wants Dutch. Why does she want Dutch?

"I think we both know that I'm the better looking one," huffs John. 

The woman ignores him in favor of her monologue. That's probably bad but at least he isn't getting hit.

"She was supposed to be here by now," the blonde woman is saying. "And then she would fall to her knees and beg me to spare you and I would shoot you in the gut while she watched."

John can't help the shudder this time. This woman is crazy. Dutch would be better off if she stayed away and yet he finds himself daring to hope that she is hiding in the shadows ready to save him. 

"Perhaps she's realized that you're nothing more than dead weight," croons the woman. 

John ignores her. She doesn't like that. She turns to a man beside her. All of a sudden John is aware that there are other people in the room. Four or Five, maybe more, he can't tell. 

"You were supposed to break him!"

The woman sounds like a petulant child. 

"It takes time Ms. Violet," the man is saying. "But I always break them in the end."

Violet, John doesn't recognize the name either. Dutch must have encountered the woman before she met him. That's all he has time to think before his head is hauled back and a rag is forced over his face. 

He kicks wildly and he knows that he hit home when a man swears and punches him in the stomach. He's trying to regain some semblance of composure when something cold hits his face and he can't breathe. 

The calm part of his mind tells him that this is water, unfortunately, the calm part of his mind is dwarfed by the part screaming for air. He thrashes helplessly under the onslaught and then as soon as it started, it's over. 

He coughs weakly, water spilling from his lips. 

"That's not good enough," a woman is saying, Ms. Violet supplies the calm part of his mind. "Blindfold him."

If he has to guess he would say that it takes three men to get him blindfolded. It has less to do with his skills than it does with the pure terror he feels at being trapped in the dark. 

Unable to see, the only warning has before the water returned is the pricking feeling of someone standing behind him a second before his head is forced back again. 

* * *

 

When the water finally stops for the second time, his throat is screaming. John can't remember why he's here. 

"Dutch," he cries out.

His voice is raspy and weak.

"Dutch, Dutch please!"

"She's not coming for you Killjoy," hisses a woman grabbing his face with a punishing grip. "She doesn't care about you. You're useless."

"Dutch," begs John. He doesn't know who this woman is. He just wants everything to stop.

"You're useless Johnny," says his mother. "At least D'avin is making something of himself."

"Mom stop, no," whimpers John. 

"Mom's right runt," say D'avin more cruel than John remembers. "I had to cut you loose. You'd only slow me down."

"John who?" says Dutch. Her eyes are cold. "Oh John Jaqobis? Some crazy Lethian finally rid me of him a couple months back, thank the moons."

"Dutch, no!" John is openly sobbing now. It's too much. "Dutch please don't leave me!"

His vision swirls. Mercifully, he blacks out before Dutch can walk away. 

* * *

John wakes up with someone's hand on his cheek. 

"Don't touch me bitch," he chokes scrambling away. 

He ducks and closes his eyes, waiting to be hit. It takes a moment before he realizes that he's unbound. He blinks. His eyes are watering, overwhelmed by the harsh light. 

"Shh, Johnny," soothes Dutch. "It's okay. You're safe now."

"Dutch," he breathes. "Dutch, Dutch, Dutch."

She seems to sense what he needs and pulls him closer to her, mindful of his injuries.

"You're okay Johnny. That bitch will pay for what she did to you," says Dutch

"Who was she?" asks John.

Dutch lets out a sound somewhere between a snarl and sigh. 

"I fulfilled a warrant on her brother about a year before I met you. He was kidnapping children for political leverage. He wanted to get in with the Nine. He was doing hard labor in the mines until he wound up dead last week."

She looks tired and John gets the feeling that there's more to the story than she's letting on. 

"I'm so sorry that you got tangled up in this Johnny," she says. "I never wanted for you to get hurt."

John sits up slowly, leaning on her for support.

"Hey," he says smiling weakly. "We're partners."

What he means is "We're family."

 

 


End file.
